Markets languish as heavyweights struggle

Reliance Industries, L&T and auto stocks among the top draggers in the noon trades

Markets continued to remain in the negative territory with both the benchmark indices losing 0.5% each in the noon deals on account of weak European markets coupled with selling in heavyweights like Reliance Industries, L&T and auto stocks.

At 1430 hrs, the Sensex as down 95 points at 18,946 and the Nifty lost 29 points at 5,719.

Meanwhile, there was some buying in the broader markets. The midcap index advanced 0.5% while the smallcap index turned flat with a positive bias.

In Asia, Japan's Nikkei average jumped 3%, its biggest one-day rise in almost two months, on growing expectations that the central bank will announce further easing steps on Thursday. The benchmark Nikkei rose to close at 12,362.

Hong Kong shares fell for a second day as lower oil prices pulled down the energy sector in thin trade ahead of a holiday break. The Hang Seng Index closed down 0.1% at 22,337.5, its second loss in three days.

European shares and the euro eased while German bonds were flat on Wednesday as investors awaited this week's policy decisions by the Bank of Japan and European Central Bank followed by U.S. employment data.

London's FTSE, Paris's CAC-40 and Frankfurt's DAX all opened between 0.1 and 0.5% lower after equally strong gains on Tuesday.

Back home, among the sectoral indices, only Power and Health Care indices were in the positive, up 0.5-1%. On the other hand, Realty, Capital Goods and Auto indices slipped 1-2% along with Metal, Oil & Gas and Consumer Durables down 0.7% each.

Auto stocks under pressure after reporting disappointing March sales numbers as demand has weakened on the back of economic slowdown and consequently weak consumer and business sentiments.

Bajaj Auto, Tata Motors, Mahindra and Mahindra and Hero MotoCorp down 1-3% were among the top Sensex losers.

Power stocks gained after the Adani Power ruling from the power sector regulator, Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC), on the issue of supply of electricity from its imported coal-based power project at Mundra in Gujarat.

The movers in this space were Adani Power, Tata Power, NHPC and Reliance Power gaining 4-12%.

The only gainers among the Sensex-30 were Sun Pharma, NTPC, Infosys, Maruti Suzuki, Tata Steel, Wipro and Jindal Steel up 0.4-2%.

Among the draggers were Bharti Airtel, L&T, Hindustan Unilever, Hindalco, Sterlite, HDFC, Gail India and Coal India down 1-3%.

The market breadth was positive. 1493 stock advanced while 1154 stocks declined on the BSE.